Wyoming Infrastructure Authority

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter

A southeast Wyoming landowners group is urging public officials to place a moratorium on commercial-scale wind farms in the northern Laramie Range and consider permanently banning industrial developments above certain elevations.

The 600-member Northern Laramie Range Alliance on Tuesday warned a Converse County planning committee that ranchers will face “chaotic and uncontrolled energy and transmission development” if officials do not restrict such projects in the rugged mountain terrain.

The alliance is petitioning the five-member planning and zoning commission to place a three-month moratorium on new large-scale industrial projects and pass zoning rules permanently banning such development at elevations above 5,500 feet.

“There’s a very strong tradition here that respects private property,” said Ken Lay, a founding member of the alliance who serves on the group’s steering committee. “We need a moratorium until the public and county government has had enough time to consider a permanent solution to this issue.”

Earlier efforts by the alliance to halt wind development across a broader area of the county were rejected by Converse officials who determined that such a moratorium would likely face a legal challenge. Converse is one of only a few Wyoming counties that has no zoning laws, a hands-off approach that has traditionally been welcomed by landowners.

But public sentiment appears to be shifting as energy developers look to the Laramie Range as a potential location for new wind turbines.

Industrial wind projects “would require construction of vast and intrusive supporting infrastructure, including roads, substations and transmission lines,” the group’s petition reads.

Large projects would also threaten the quality of hunting and fishing in mountainous areas home to spruce, Douglas fir and aspen trees, as well as vast stretches of open range, Lay said.

“We’d like to have this southwest corner of the county — where all the recreational opportunities exist — declared off-limits to industrial wind,” he said, adding that many ranchers depend on revenue generated by hunting and fishing fees.

The high plains of northern Converse, by contrast, would be ideal for wind power development, Lay said. Those areas are typically held by fewer landowners and do not have the same mixed-use history, he added.

The alliance’s latest proposal was narrowed to include only high-elevation areas south and west of Interstate 25. While the exact acreage is unknown, Lay estimated the area to be no more than one-fifth of the 4,254-acre county.

“There’s a balanced approach here that we’re looking for,” he said.

David Pellatz, vice chairman of the commission, said Tuesday’s standing-room-only crowd of 150 was a reflection of how important the issue is to Converse residents, but that the diversity of opinions underscored the challenge facing the commission.

“This is just one of a string of hearings and other meetings we’ve held to get a sense of where the county wants to go with this issue,” Pellatz said.

The board will now decide whether to recommend the proposal to the county commissioners, decline it, or recommend an amended version. Pellatz said he was unsure when a decision would be made but cautioned that similar industrial zoning recommendations made by his board to the county commission have all failed.

“They’ve been fairly blunt that the recommendations we’ve been sending them are a waste of their time,” he said.

Curbing renewable energy rush
What southeast Wyoming lacks in tradition mineral resources it makes up for with winds that howl from Casper to Laramie.

With up to 15,000 megawatts of wind power potential — enough to power some 5 million homes — developers have flocked to the Cowboy State in hopes of profiting from a lucrative market for renewable energy subsidized by federal tax incentives.

Firms have already submitted more than 90 wind monitoring applications covering some 1.5 million acres of federal land, said Janelle Wrigley, of the Bureau of Land Management’s Wyoming office. Collectively, those applications would translate into 34 million acres if fully developed.

The agency is reviewing six applications for commercial-scale wind farms, Wrigley added. Meanwhile, Converse saw its fourth farm — Duke Energy Corp.’s 99-megawatt Campbell Hill project — come online last month under a 20-year contract that will send the power west to markets in Utah and Oregon.

But while many in Wyoming welcome wind farms for their economic development potential, some ranchers and landowners have fought against the placement of turbines, transmission lines and other energy infrastructure on pristine mountain landscapes.

Under intense pressure from the alliance, developers of the $2 billion, 1,150-mile Gateway West Transmission Line last year decided to reroute the project west of the Laramie Range instead of crossing over to its eastern slope.

Lay counts that decision as a victory for his group but said he is worried many landowners are now selling rights-of-way to a Utah developer seeking to build a major wind farm on the range.

“The independent companies approach landowners pretty much in secret to sign them up,” he said. “They create a kind of fait accompli.”

In addition to landowner resistance, wind power developments in Wyoming are restricted by a state mandate to protect sage grouse “core areas” deemed essential to the survival of the chicken-like bird.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to announce next month whether to list the bird as a federally protected species, a decision that could cripple the expansion of wind farms and other large-scale development projects in Wyoming.

Saving the ranch
As opposition mounts in places like Converse County, several pro-development groups have formed to promote wind farms, touting their clean energy benefits, job creation and added local revenue.

Bob Whitton, chairman of the Renewable Energy Alliance of Landowners, argued against the zoning petition at Tuesday’s hearing, saying recreational opportunities would be preserved if ranch owners could generate revenue from wind power agreements. Without such income, many would be forced to sell their lands to residential developers who would impose a much wider and long-lasting mark on the land, he said.

“Our position as landowners is that we have a right to do what we want on our deeded land,” he said, echoing Lay’s argument for property rights. “But they want to be able to reach across the fence lines and say, ‘You can’t build a wind farm because it would be in my view.’”

REAL’s 300 members own 800,000 acres in six counties, including areas considered ripe for wind power development. Depending on the size of the ranch and the turbines involved, ranchers stand to gain up to $8,000 per tower annually, Whitton said.

“Cattle ranching is a very risky business,” he said. “They make money some years, they lose money in others.” And for many, supplementary income from wind power agreements is needed just to keep the business afloat.

Moreover, Whitton added, in addition to exporting coal, oil and gas, and beef, Wyoming is also exporting high school and college graduates. Promoting wind development in the state could create service and manufacturing jobs needed to stanch the flow of young Wyoming natives, he said.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D), a proponent of wind energy development, has said he is sensitive to those who want to direct the massive turbines to certain areas, but he has cautioned against unreasoned opposition.

“You can’t come to me and say, ‘Governor, we want to support alternative energy, but that power line — I just don’t want them,’” he told attendees of the Wyoming Wind Symposium last August. “The state has to be careful that it keeps a fair and open playing field so that people can build those power lines. Because without power lines, all of the things we’re talking about won’t happen.”

But Freudenthal also called on energy firms “to do a little more” to aid in the state’s economic development. “We expect them to talk about manufacturing plants being in Wyoming, we expect construction facilities to be in Wyoming and we expect the jobs to be in Wyoming.”

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